OpenAI Academy Turns Two — and Launches a Community Trainer Program!

Hi, it's me, Shiichan! Today I've got a milestone story from OpenAI News about OpenAI's AI learning program.

OpenAI News openai.com

What was announced?

OpenAI News published a look back at two years of OpenAI Academy, the practical AI training program that launched in September 2024. Academy has offered hands-on training for educators, small business owners, developers, and nonprofit leaders, among others.

Over these two years, Academy has hosted more than 250 events, and more than 4 million people have engaged with its content. For the next chapter, OpenAI is piloting a new program called the OpenAI Academy Community Trainer Program, which helps local organizations train their own staff to teach Academy material.

The story so far

Academy originally focused on expanding access to AI training, technical guidance, and community, mainly for developers and mission-driven organizations working on local problems. Since then it has grown to include:

• Self-paced online courses
• Practical guides
• In-person workshops
• Large multi-city events called AI Skills Jams

For example, the AI Skills Jam for K-12 Educators brought together more than 1,600 teachers, administrators, and district leaders across eight U.S. cities. Academy has also run recurring workshops for communities including small business owners, educators, veterans, and nonprofit leaders.

But delivering this kind of training everywhere has depended on OpenAI and its partners showing up in person, which naturally limits how many communities can be reached at once.

What changes

The new Community Trainer Program lets organizations - schools, workforce groups, small-business networks, and community organizations - nominate their own staff to become Academy trainers. The goal is to make training and ongoing support available closer to where people actually live and work, without OpenAI needing to be on site every time.

In short, more communities will have someone local they can turn to for AI skills help.

Dive Deep

Here's how the Community Trainer Program pilot works:

• Participating organizations nominate staff members to become trainer candidates
• Candidates learn the Academy curriculum and how to run a workshop: demonstrating useful workflows, helping people apply AI to their own tasks, encouraging peer learning, and supporting participants as they evaluate results
• Candidates complete training and a facilitation assessment before leading their own Academy sessions

Separately, this month OpenAI also introduced new Academy learning paths for knowledge workers, developers, leaders, educators, and college students. Learners can take courses relevant to their role and earn Academy course badges by passing assessments.

Across its events, OpenAI found that the most valuable part of training is giving people dedicated time to try AI tools on work that actually matters to them - like an educator using ChatGPT to adapt a lesson, a small business owner building a repeatable customer-research process, or a developer using Codex to plan and implement a change while keeping control of the review.

Wrap-up

• OpenAI Academy just turned two, with more than 250 events held and over 4 million people engaged so far.
• A new Community Trainer Program pilot lets schools, workforce organizations, small-business networks, and community groups train their own staff as Academy trainers.
• New learning paths and course badges launched this month for knowledge workers, developers, leaders, educators, and college students.
• Especially relevant if you're part of a school, local government, or small-business support organization looking to bring AI training to your own community.